PART 1

Philippe Halsman
Philippe Halsman was famous for photographs with the theme of surrealism. This was done by shooting moving subjects, thus creating interesting visuals for the photographs. He used different angles to create different feel for the photos; some of them were close up of the face, and others captured the full body. He always followed 3 basic rules when photographing to achieve the sense of surrealism: “the rule of unusual technique”, “the rule of the added unusual feature”, and “the rule of the missing feature”. Philipe also shot the famous photograph of Albert Einstein with a mournful look. I've included two of Philippe's work: one of Woody Allen and another of Barbara Streisand. I really like the one of Woody Allen; it's simple, but still provokes questions. The contrast between his shirt and the background creates a sense of focus on the subject. The one of Barbara is interesting as well. The subject is placed right in the centre of the frame, and the shot shows a perfect side profile of her. The background of this shot was blurred allowing us to focus on the subject.

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American actor and film director Woody Allen

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Barbara Streisand posing for a magazine cover shoot.


Eve Arnold
Eve Arnold was famous for her portrait photographs of the rich and the famous, especially those of Marilyn Monroe, and Joan Crawford. That is why I chose portraits of these two people to represent her work. Eve also travelled around the world photographing the poor of different cultures. Her works were usually in black and white, but she did explore colour-photography later in her career. Most of her works were candid shots, meaning the subjects were not interacting with the camera. This technique gave her photographs a natural and intriguing kind of sense.The following are candid portraits of Marilyn Monroe and Joan Crawford. The one of Marilyn seems natural and intriguing because of the way she is posing. The black background eliminates any distraction that would be caused by a busy background. The one of Joan is very intriguing as it provides three different views of the subject. The way she was positioned must have been really important to make this shot perfect.

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Candid portrait of Marilyn Monroe.

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Portrait of Joan Crawford

http://www.photography-art-cafe.com/famous-portrait-photographers.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/jan/05/eve-arnold

Portrait Assignment Presentation